FORM AND APPEARANCE OF THE ARGOLIC PLAIN.

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recess of Argos. It seems not improbable that Mycena derived its name from the word in the ancient language signifying a "recess."

our way thither is dry and dusty, and has few objects to relieve its bare level. It is not intersected by hedges, and the few modern villages which are scattered over its surface are small and nearly deserted. They consist, in general, of a low church, of a well, whose stone edges are deeply furrowed by the ropes which draw up the buckets of water, of heaps of large hewn blocks of stone near them, and of a few mud cottages, on the walls of which, at the close of the summer season, stalks of Indian corn and tobacco are hung to dry. The distance from Nauplia to MYCENE is about twelve miles. The road passes under the lofty rock on the south-east of Nauplia, on which stands the ancient citadel of PALAMEDI, and leaves the Cyclopean walls of Tiryns, the city of Hercules, at about a mile on the north from Nauplia, on the right hand.

The ruins of Mycenæ, concerning which some details have been given above, in the fifty-sixth and following pages, are in some respects unequalled in interest by any object in Greece. Their position is fortunate; there is

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CITADEL OF MYCENÆ.

no habitation on the spot, and you rise from a vacant plain to the deserted hill upon which they stand. The citadel occupied an eminence stretching from east to west, and supplying a platform of about a thousand feet in length, and half that distance in breadth. Two mountain-torrents, coming from the hills on the east, flowed in their rocky beds, one on the north, the other on the south, along the foot of the Acropolis, and thence were carried into the general receptacle of the neighbouring mountain-streams, the Argolic plain. The walls of the citadel may be traced in their entire circuit, and on the western side they rise to a considerable height. The interior of their enclosure, or area of the citadel, is covered with the common turf and mountain-plants of the country. Only a few foundations of ancient buildings remain, and one or two cisterns hewn in the rocky soil and lined with cement. Such is the present state of the Acropolis of Mycenæ.

It was entered by two gates, one on the north-east, the other on the northwest, and by two only. In an ancient city, gates seem to have been regarded